Price impact & slippage

Two related concepts decide what you actually receive on a swap.

Price impact

Price impact is how much your own trade moves the pool’s price. Because pools follow the constant-product rule, each unit you buy is slightly more expensive than the last. The deeper the pool’s liquidity relative to your trade size, the smaller the impact.

• Small trade vs a large pool → negligible impact.
• Large trade vs a shallow pool → significant impact; you may receive noticeably less than the headline price.

The app shows the estimated price impact before you confirm. If it looks high, split the trade into smaller parts or pick a deeper pool / route.

Slippage tolerance

Between the moment you submit a swap and the moment it executes on-chain, the price can move (other trades, volatility). Slippage tolerance is the maximum adverse move you are willing to accept:

• If the final price stays within your tolerance, the swap executes.
• If it moves beyond it, the swap reverts and your funds stay in your wallet.

Choosing a value

• Too low — swaps may fail repeatedly on volatile or low-liquidity pairs.
• Too high — you risk a worse execution price than expected.

A moderate default (around 0.5%) works for most liquid pairs. Raise it for volatile or thin pairs, and lower it when you want strict price protection.